We no longer want to be a melting pot, because we don't understand what is already melted.

The young very seldom lead anything in our country today. It's been quite some time since a younger generation pushed an older one to a higher standard.

I think that when the education system started to be dismantled during the first Great Depression in the 1930s, we didn't recover from that.

Even in these times, there are still neighbors that will turn their backs on neighbors.

Benny Goodman's band was integrated before baseball. Even before it was physically integrated, music was integrated. Everyone listened to Armstrong and Ellington. The 20s was called the Jazz Age. It's part of being American.

We all teach from that same frame of reference. We're like neighborhood - the people who have had the opportunity through this music to gain a platform and spread the message of this music, which is basically love in a form of communication that's honest and truthful.

The blues. It runs through all American music. Somebody bending the note. The other is the two-beat groove. It's in New Orleans music, it's in jazz, it's in country music, it's in gospel.